A Night in Old Paris

A Night in Old Paris is a short dramatic opera by American composer Henry Kimball Hadley with an English libretto by Frederick Truesdell, based on a play by Glen Macdonough.

The mistress of the tavern listens intently as one of the men recounts how, years ago, he'd tortured a young man.

Just before the young man died, he'd promised his tormentor that one day he'd return from the grave to drag his soul to hell.

Hearing the story, the mistress realizes that this cruel man had once been her lover—who'd abandoned her, unaware that she was pregnant.

As he slumps to the floor, the tavern door swings violently open, and the shade of the dead youth arrives to claim the soul of his torturer.